[Major Cross on Madame Blavatsky] (original) (raw)

[Major Cross on

Madam Blavatsky's Tibetan Travels]

[Reprinted from The Canadian Theosophist (Toronto), June 15, 1927, p. 71.]

Major Cross, who with his wife, Dr. Cross, and their daughter, have been visiting Toronto, spoke to the Toronto Theosophical Society on Sunday afternoon, May 15 [1927]. His address, which we hope to report more in detail, gave a long, graphic, and intensely interesting account of Major Cross's travels in North-eastern Tibet, during which he traced the progress of a white woman in 1867 through the most difficult hill country, to a lamasery far north, through the recollections of various old people, who were impressed by the personality of this unusual visitor. He identified her with Madam Blavatsky, and the date was settled by those he talked with as having been ten years after the Mutiny. Major Cross said he was not a Theosophist, but could not help being interested in the story of Madam Blavatsky's journey as it had been related to him, and on finding a community of Theosophists in Toronto who were more interested in the founder of the Society than in those who sought to exploit it for other ends than it had been intended to achieve, he was glad to tell them what he had heard. His address was illustrated with an interesting series of views of Tibetan scenery. Major Cross described himself as manager or factor of tea and other estates of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, to which he was returning, his position giving him a special opportunity to gather the information upon which his lecture was based.